Reviews 52123 Published by

Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

AKG Y50 Headphone Review
Asus Maximus VII Ranger & Hero Motherboard Review
Asus RP-AC52 Wireless Range Extender Review
BitFenix Fury 550G Alchemy-Sleeved Power Supply Preview
Buying Guide: Best laptop 2014: which notebook should you buy?
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 (GV-N770OC-2GD) vs. ASUS Matrix Platinum (R9280X-P-3GD5) Video Card Review
Intel SSD 2500 Pro 240GB Solid State Drive Review
iOttie Easy Flex Wireless Qi Standard Charging Car Mount Review
Kingston HyperX Cloud Pro Gaming Headset (KHX-H3CL/WR) Review
MSI Z97M Gaming Review
Nvidia officially reveals the Shield tablet
NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet and Wireless Controller Preview
Nvidia Shield Tablet is packed with ports, possibilities
NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet Preview
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III Review
TDK A12 TREK Micro Wireless Speaker Review



AKG Y50 Headphone Review

Before you even open the box, the bright, taxi cab yellow paint and large AKG logo send a strong message to anyone around you: these are loud in more ways than one. You won't need to check your credit score to buy these either. At $135.94 (£79, AU$144), you'll have more scratch to spend on your Ableton Live License. The Y50's are just the next iteration of AKG's colorful lifestyle headphones, aimed toward the audiophile on the go. If you like the loud appearance, then I'm sure you will enjoy the booming sound and impressive audio quality from these on-ear headphones.They're perfect for any entry-level DJ, too.

Read full article @ Techradar

Asus Maximus VII Ranger & Hero Motherboard Review

Z87 saw cost-effective gaming-calibre motherboards take the limelight. All of the big vendors released at least one product that provided gaming-orientated features in a cost-effective package. Asus SKU of choice was the successful Hero – a board which ticked many of the boxes and did so with an efficient price tag. The motherboard market is fierce so Asus welcomes back its Hero for Z97 and adds an even more aggressively priced variant to its Republic of Gamers (ROG) arsenal – the Maximus VII Ranger.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Asus RP-AC52 Wireless Range Extender Review

With the latest network standard. 802.11 AC, wireless networks finally are getting fast enough to be a real alternative to wired ethernet in the house. In smaller houses a single router is enough but as soon as have a larger house or a older house with thick walls it sometimes is hard to get a good coverage. The ASUS RP-AC52 Range Extender helps you extend the wireless network. Promising speeds up to 750 Mbps (300 Mbps on the 802.11n-band and 433 Mbps on the 5 GHz 802.11ac-band) it sounds like a great product. Does it deliver? Read on to find out.

Read full article @ Bjorn3D

BitFenix Fury 550G Alchemy-Sleeved Power Supply Preview

Earlier this year the BitFenix Fury PSU Series was introduced, and quickly gained interest among desktop system builders looking to benefit from the power supply’s individually-sleeved modular cables and 80 PLUS GOLD energy efficiency certification. Builders wanting to manage cables now have the option to choose the connections they need, then cleanly route the sleeved wires through smaller spaces. In this product spotlight, Benchmark Reviews covers the new BitFenix Fury PSU series.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Buying Guide: Best laptop 2014: which notebook should you buy?

With Windows 8.1 here and Windows 9 on the way, Ultrabooks taking off in popularity and laptop-tablet hybrids seeing more releases, choosing the right laptop is even more confusing than ever.Cheap laptops, like Chromebooks, are more powerful and capable than ever, while high-end devices are often perfectly good replacements for your desktop computer, able to cope with more intensive programs.Those after a fast boot up time and a lightweight machine to carry might drool over an Ultrabook. Serious gamers will want a machine tailored to their graphical and processing needs, while those after flexibility might fancy a convertible laptop-tablet hybrid.It might seem overwhelming at first – and it can be what with all of the choices – but we're here to help. Believe us when we say that there is a perfect laptop out there for you. With this guide, you'll find not only that, but which is the absolute best.Break down the types of laptops for meBack in the day, there were simply laptops for leisure and those for labor. Today, there are several options for both sides of the fence, some of which jumping back and forth over it.

Read full article @ Techradar

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 (GV-N770OC-2GD) vs. ASUS Matrix Platinum (R9280X-P-3GD5) Video Card Review

We compared two video cards that compete against each other on the high-end segment, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 (GV-N770OC-2GD) and the ASUS Matrix Platinum (R9280X-P-3GD5), both coming with a factory overclock. Let's see which one is the best.

Read full article @ Hardware Secrets

Intel SSD 2500 Pro 240GB Solid State Drive Review


Intel’s solid state storage offerings are as diverse as they come. Although Intel started with only a single family of enthusiast-class drives a number of years ago, the company has since expanded its scope to include everything from ultra-high-end PCI Express-based offerings to small, entry-level SATA drives, meant to be used solely as a cache.

The product we’ll be showing you here, the just-announced Intel SSD 2500 Pro, falls somewhere in the middle of Intel’s SSD line-up. The SSD 2500 Pro is the follow-up to last year’s SSD 1500 Pro series, which targets corporate and small-business clients. The drive shares much of its DNA with some of Intel’s consumer-class drives, but the Pro series cranks things up a few notches with support for advanced security and management features, low power states, and an extended management toolset.

We’ve got one of Intel’s 240GB SSD 2500 Pro series drives in house and have run it through a suite of benchmarks.

Read full article @ HotHardware

iOttie Easy Flex Wireless Qi Standard Charging Car Mount Review

I hate wires. No, really, I hate wires. I was one of the first people I knew to get WiFi in my house, I’ve never had a landline, and I used to joke that I cut the cable cord out of principle alone. All of this said, it’s no surprise that I’m big on wireless charging. I’ve got a Tylt VÜ at work, an official Nexus wireless charger (with magnets!) on my nightstand, and a DiGiYes dual-spot wireless charger in my living room. Now, with the iOttie Easy Flex Wireless Qi Standard Charging Car Mount, I’ve got wireless charging in my car, too. We first saw the Easy Flex Qi, as I’ve come to call it, and do remember that Qi is pronounced “chee”, at CES 2014, where it won a coveted CEA Innovations Award for its fantastic design and functionality. We’re glad to finally get our hands on one to see how it fairs under review.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Kingston HyperX Cloud Pro Gaming Headset (KHX-H3CL/WR) Review

Kingston have been known for some time now as a manufacturer of high performance memory and with their HyperX brand have added some stylish modules to their range. In more recent times we have seen them branch out into SSDs and now they are taking another leap, this time with the release of a headset. The HyperX Cloud.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven.com

MSI Z97M Gaming Review

Also MSI has meanwhile a gaming motherboard in their portfolio, that features mATX form factor. Therefore there is an interesting mix of features mainly targeting gamers but also addressing overclockers to a certain extent. Overall we are really curious to find out what MSI came up with in case of this board and here we will have a look at features as well as layout.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Nvidia officially reveals the Shield tablet

Last week, KitGuru was invited to a press event in London, where Nvidia showed off its Shield tablet and controller for the very first time. The Shield tablet has been designed to deliver a console experience through Nvidia’s own technologies such as Shadow Play and Game-Stream.

Read full article @ KitGuru

NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet and Wireless Controller Preview

NVIDIA just officially announced the SHIELD tablet (powered by their Tegra K1 SoC) and SHIELD wireless controller. As the SHIELD branding implies, the new SHIELD tablet and wireless controller builds upon the previously-released, Android-based SHIELD portable to bring a true gaming-oriented tablet to consumers. In some ways, the SHIELD tablet and wireless controller are somewhat of mashup of the SHIELD portable and the Tegra Note 7, but featuring updated technology and better build materials. You could think of the SHIELD tablet and wireless controller as an upgraded SHIELD portable gaming device, with the screen de-coupled from the controller.

The device features the aforementioned NVIDIA Tegra K1 SoC, paired to 2GB of RAM and an 8”, full-HD IPS display, with a native resolution of 1920x1200...

Read full article @ HotHardware

Nvidia Shield Tablet is packed with ports, possibilities

Just under a year since the release of the Shield Portable, Nvidia has announced a second member of the Shield family. As expected, it's the Shield Tablet, an Android slate with an emphasis on gaming. Like the Shield Portable before it, the Shield Tablet will sell direct from Nvidia, not from a partner company. The Shield Tablet extends Nvidia's Android gaming focus to a new form factor, making it one of the first tablets anywhere with a fairly pure gaming mission.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet Preview

Depending on who you speak to, NVIDIA’s original SHIELD is either an amazing success or a device that failed to find its niche. Regardless of what pundits may say, SHIELD was conceived as a simple technology showcase that combined seemingly disparate elements into a cohesive and actually quite successful ecosystem. We always had the perception that it was a pet project which eventually morphed into something more successful than originally planned.

While SHIELD did integrate Android, PC gaming and other uses into a unique cross-platform device, its form factor was a bit cumbersome. Creating it in the shape of an ergonomically correct controller with an added screen did have some allure but transporting it wasn’t easy. Now, to incorporate a bit more portability into their Swiss Army Knife approach NVIDIA is adding a newcomer to their SHIELD lineup: the SHIELD Tablet.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III Review

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III compact camera earns Editors' Choice accolades because of its image quality and excellent EVF, even despite its high price.

Read full article @ TechReviewSource.com

TDK A12 TREK Micro Wireless Speaker Review

One of the things i love about Greece and Attica in particular is that we hundreds of thousands of visitors each year and thanks to some of them i always seem to come in contact with electronic devices which i may have missed otherwise. So a few nights back while i was walking at the beach (trying to cool down after spending several hours performing tests on HDDs and SSDs) a guy ran past me carrying a large backpack on which he had a tiny portable wireless speaker secured with the help of a carabiner. That speaker offered very little in terms of volume and audio quality but i did like it’s very tiny size (and in part the carabiner feature) and so i was quite glad to receive an email by TDK a couple of days later asking me if I’d like to test their latest A12 TREK Micro Wireless Speaker which aside the tiny size it also shares one more similarity with that speaker, it makes use of a carabiner.

TDK Life on Record, a leading global brand with a rich audio legacy, is dedicated to personalizing and enhancing audiophiles’ ever-evolving digital music lifestyles. TDK Life on Record audio products are carefully crafted to focus on performance, marrying a clean, striking design with the precision and flexibility of modern technology. This world-class line of premium audio products delivers a warm, authentic, high-fidelity entertainment experience. The TDK Life on Record logo is a trademark owned by TDK Corporation and is licensed exclusively to Imation Corp., a leading global developer and marketer of brands that empower people to capture, save and enjoy digital information. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

The TDK A12 TREK Micro is a tiny IP64 splash=proof certified Bluetooth v2.1+EDR compatible wireless speaker with a power output of 3W through a single 40mm dynamic driver paired with a 60mm passive radiator. It also features support for NFC (Near Field Communications) compatible devices, carries a nickel–metal hydride rechargeable battery that gives it up to 6 hours of playback time and comes ready with TDKs TrueWireless Stereo technology which allows the end user to pair the A12 with another A12 for stereo wireless sound (unfortunately although very interesting as a feature we only received one sample so we were unable to test that functionality). TDK however has packed even more features into the tiny A12 TREK Micro so let's take a closer look and see what these are.

Read full article @ NikKTech